Day 13 - 6/6/08

Weight: Porky weighed in at 13.2 oz last night, that's 1.8 oz in 24 hours. I think I will have to find a bigger box.

Feedings: Every 4 hours

Eaten in last 24 hrs: Approx 125 ml of KMR

Stimulation: Still making progress. Yesterday the poor little guy was a little constipated. It was so funny watching him try to get it out, lying on his back in my hand, front and back legs straight out pushing with all his concentration and effort. He did finally get it all out and then just collapsed from the effort of it all.

Dudley and his nurse maids had a rough day yesterday and didn't find a spare second to post on his progress.

We found some small Gerber plastic baby bottles at the supermarket and yesterday we started to use them to feed Dudley. Once we got the right opening in the nipple and realized we had to strain his formula to get out the little bits of powder to keep them from clogging the nipple, this is the best feeding method so far. There has been some trial and error though to get the bottles to work.

Yesterday morning Mary Beth offered to do his 7:30AM feed so I could shower and get ready for Dudley's first big road trip. A half hour after they started feeding, I came downstairs to Mary Beth practically in tears, pleading with Dudley to eat. One of the trial and errors with the new bottles is to make sure he doesn't get too much at first because he snorts it out his nose. Unfortunately, Mary Beth found this out to start the feeding and then Dudley decided to be B-A-D and not eat not matter what method she came up with (she was trying tiny syringes by the time I got down). I took him and the bottle and you would never know there was a problem. He took his time eating but drank from the bottle with no problem, making poor Mary Beth feel really great :{

We had to return some inventory we had purchased from Hey Teach! back to one of our vendors yesterday because they just weren't selling. We rented a van from Enterprise and had to drive 2.5 hrs each way to CT. With the four hour feeding schedule, you can do the math to determine Mr Dudley had to come along for the ride. After his bad morning, this little guy was so good on the trip. He slept and then when it was time to eat, he ate and then went back to sleep. It was a long day for the guy and his 11:30PM feeding was another disaster. I accidentally gave him too much to start and it went up his nose and that was it he was too tired to fight and pretty much went to sleep without eating anything. I tried for 45 minutes to an hour to get him to eat but he wasn't interested. The only good thing was it made the 3:30AM feeding a breeze, he was so hungry he ate so quickly that we were done everything (feeding, double eliminations, clean up and wrap in warm towels) in about 15 minutes.

I forgot to mention, another milestone has been reached - Dudley turned 3 weeks old yesterday. Lazy boy still shows no indication that he will ever go to the bathroom on his own. Though over the last couple of days I have noticed Dudley is much more interested in his surroundings. Almost like he is just learning to see. Also, the wobbly back legs are getting stronger. He is actually walking just a little bit before it gets too tiring and he has to stop to take a nap.

This picture is after his very long day yesterday, notice how furry he's getting.